The family of a teenage ski instructor who suffered 80 per cent burns in a coach crash in the French Alps has said she is in a 'very critical condition' after being flown back to the UK for treatment.
Catrin Pugh, from Wrexham, was one of four young people seriously injured when a coach carrying British seasonal ski workers crashed into a mountainside on a notorious twisting descent from the Alpe D'Huez resort. The driver, Maurice Wrightson, 63, died in the accident and has been hailed a hero for swerving the vehicle into the mountain.
Miss Pugh, the most severely injured of the 53 passengers, was placed in a medically induced coma last week. Her father, Anthony Pugh, said: 'We flew her back on Saturday and she is in hospital in Liverpool. She is very critically ill. We are just devastated, it is a very difficult time.'
It is believed Miss Pugh was sitting at the front of the bus when it struck the mountain just before 2pm local time last Monday. The other three injured passengers—Ed Billen, 23, from Leyton, Matthew Beauchamp, 19, from Bristol, and an unnamed 23-year-old woman with broken wrists—have all returned to the UK.
